Singer, Actor Robert Goulet Dead At 73
Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73.
The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.
He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being diagnosed with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis in September.
Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the critically needed transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years. "Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.
Vera says they were last able to speak three weeks ago, before he was put on a respirator.
Photos: Robert Goulet
Longtime friend Wayne Newton says Goulet's sense of humor "kept my spirits up in some of the lowest valleys in my life."
"His incredible voice will live on in his music, and as Bob so brilliantly sang, 'There will be another song for him and he will sing it,' for God now has another singing angel by his side," says Newton.
The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with his Broadway debut in "Camelot," the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.
He became a hit with American TV viewers with multiple appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other programs. Sullivan had labeled him the "American baritone from Canada," where he had already been a popular star in the 1950s, hosting his own show on CBC-TV called "General Electric's Showtime."
The Los Angeles Times wrote in 1963 that Goulet "is popping up in specials so often these days that you almost feel he has a weekly show. The handsome lad is about the hottest item in show business since his Broadway debut."
Goulet won a Grammy Award in 1962 for Best New Artist and made the singles chart in 1964 with "My Love Forgive Me."
"When I'm using a microphone or doing recordings I try to concentrate on the emotional content of the song and to forget about the voice itself," he told The New York Times in 1962. "Sometimes I think that if you sing with a big voice, the people in the audience don't listen to the words, as they should. They just listen to the sound."
While he returned to Broadway only infrequently after "Camelot," he did win a Tony award in 1968 for best actor in a musical for his starring role in "The Happy Time." His other Broadway appearances were in "Moon Over Buffalo," in 1995, and "La Cage aux Folles," 2005, plus a "Camelot" revival in 1993 in which he played King Arthur.
Goulet's stage credits elsewhere include productions of "Carousel," "Finian's Rainbow," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "The Pajama Game," "Meet Me in St. Louis," and "South Pacific."
None of the Broadway principals were chosen for the film version of "Camelot," in which Lancelot was played by Franco Nero.
But Goulet did get some film work, performing in a range of movies from the animated "Gay Purr-ee" (1962), "Underground" (1970), to "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" (1991). He played a lounge singer in Louis Malle's acclaimed 1980 film "Atlantic City."
He returned to Broadway in 2005 as one half of a gay couple in "La Cage aux Folles," and Associated Press theater critic Michael Kuchwara praised Goulet for his "affable, self-deprecating charm."
Goulet had no problems poking fun at his own fame, appearing recently in Emerald nuts commercials in which he "messes" with the stuff of dozing office workers. The nut company, honoring the star of the zany commercials, has posted a note on its web site in his memory, offering condolences to his family: "We are deeply saddened by the passing of our friend Robert Goulet. His sense of humor, charm and charisma left an impression on all of us."
"You have to have humor, and be able to laugh at yourself," Goulet said in a biography on his Web site.
The only son of French-Canadian parents, Goulet was born in Lawrence, Mass. After Goulet's father died, Goulet's mother moved the family to Canada when the future star was about 13. (The family name was pronounced gou-LETT in Massachusetts and reverted to the proper French gou-LAY in Canada.)
He received vocal training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto but decided opera wasn't for him. He made his first professional appearance at age 16 with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. His early success on Canadian television preceded his breakthrough on Broadway.
Pianist Roger Williams said he first met Goulet when he performed on a Canadian television show.
"He appeared on the last part of the show, and I knew then that he was a tremendous talent," Williams said. "He could shake a room with that big beautiful voice."
When he came to New York for the "Camelot" audition, the story goes, Goulet's luggage got lost and he was forced to perform in casual clothes, a rare informality in those days. "I see you've come prepared for action," director Moss Hart told the young man. After they heard him sing and learned he could handle Lancelot's French lines, Hart, Lerner and Loewe offered him the job on the spot.
When his onetime costar Julie Andrews received a Kennedy Center Honors award in 2001, Goulet was among those joining in singing in her honor.
Although Goulet headlined frequently on the Las Vegas Strip, one incident stood out, evidenced by a photograph that hung on his office wall. It was the mid-1970s and he had just finished a two-week run at the Desert Inn, when he was asked to fill in at the Frontier across the street.
Overnight, the marquees of two of the Strip's hottest resorts at the time read the same: "Robert Goulet."
"I played there many, many years and have wonderful memories of the place," Goulet told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
His first two marriages ended in divorce. He had a daughter with his first wife, Louise Longmore, and two sons with his second wife, Carol Lawrence, the actress and singer who played Maria in the original Broadway production of "West Side Story."
After their breakup, she portrayed him unflatteringly in a book. "There's a fine line between love and hate," he responded in a New York Times interview. "She went on every talk show interview and cut me to shreds, and I've never done anything like that, and I won't."